


To Be At Peace

by MagicalDragon



Series: Areth verse [2]
Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies), Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Blood Pacts, Character Study, Gen, Historical References, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Past Relationship(s), Queer Themes, honestly the only fbawtft thing i use is the blood pact thing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-22
Updated: 2019-01-22
Packaged: 2019-10-14 16:28:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17512013
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MagicalDragon/pseuds/MagicalDragon
Summary: “Is this… what I think it is?” Minerva asks when she hears him enter.She's pointing down at where his broken areth lies.“Yes,” Albus says as he comes up to stand next to her, considering the object that has haunted him for most of his life.“But who… “Minerva’s eyebrows are furrowed.“Grindelwald, I'm afraid,” he says as he turn away from her and walks to sit down behind his desk.





	To Be At Peace

The year is 1968 and Minerva is waiting for him in his office when he arrives. It's summer and the school year hasn't started yet, but there's still plenty to do. More than he'd appreciated when he was just a teacher himself. Still, all thoughts of letters and lesson plans fly out of his head when he sees what she's bend over looking at. 

“Is this… what I think it is?” Minerva asks when she hears him enter. 

She's pointing down at where his broken areth lies. 

“Yes,” Albus says as he comes up to stand next to her, considering the object that has haunted him for most of his life. 

“But who… “ 

Minerva’s eyebrows are furrowed. 

“Grindelwald, I'm afraid,” he says as he turn away from her and walks to sit down behind his desk. 

Minerva doesn't say anything. He doesn't want to see her reaction. He deserves whatever it is. 

She looks stricken. 

“Come now, Minerva,” he says, not without a certain degree of humor. “You can surely not be so very surprised.”

“I'm surprised at the Grindelwald part,” she answers plainly; so plainly, in fact, that she seems shocked at herself. 

“Why don't you sit down, my dear,” he suggests and Minerva does just that. 

Albus sits down as well and summons the teapot he keeps in his private quarters. He taps it once and soon the water is boiling inside of it. 

“A cup, Minerva?” He asks and Minerva nods. 

He doesn't speak while he pours her tea, nor when he pours his own. He has never spoken of it to anyone who did not already know half of it before. He's 86 years old, renowned for his wisdom and yet unsure. It's disconcerting. 

“This is why you did not fight him for so long…” Minerva says. “This - a blood pact, that was the reason?”

Albus smiles melancholically.

“It's funny, Newt called it the same thing, when he found out…“ He tells her. “A blood pact. Of course with Newt I was sure he was merely being delicate. They are so rare a thing nowadays that I do not feel I can be certain in your case.”

Minerva hesitates for a moment, then:

“It's an areth, is it not?” 

Albus nods. 

“My grandmother always had her’s on her, even many years after my grandfather passed...”

Her eyes flickers to where his and Gellert’s lie, broken and discarded. 

“Did you love him?” She blurts out and again she seems shocked at herself. “You must have, I suppose…”

“I did,” Albus says evenly. “I could say that I did not know who he really was, thus could not truly be said to love him, but I'm afraid the excuse has grown rather hollow over the years.”

Minerva nods, a bit wide-eyed. They have spend much time together and share a deep mutual respect, even friendship, but it's not in Albus’ nature to talk about himself. They have never had a conversation remotely like this before. 

Minerva looks thoughtful as she takes a sip from her cup.

“I did not even know they could be destroyed,” she said, suddenly looking for all the world like the eager school girl she'd been when Albus had taught her. “Not from one end, anyway. I'm assuming he didn't consent to it.”

Albus almost laughs. 

“No, Gellert would never have agreed to such a thing. Not only did he know how evenly matched we would be in a duel, he….” Albus hesitates. “Well, it suited Gellert’s pride to have me still bound to him in such a way.”

“Gellert…” Minerva repeats. “I don't think I'll get used to that.”

Albus feels an absurd inclination to point out that when you have had another man's most private parts in your mouth, it's difficult to go back to surname terms, but he has enough propriety left in him to stay his tongue. Instead he says:

“Names have a way of giving people power. I have not wished to give Gellert any since the turn of the century.”

This is true, too, if more of a secondary reason. 

“So the,-” 

Minerva stops herself suddenly. Albus is certain he knows what she wants to know but doesn’t want to ask. 

“You can ask, Minerva,” he says quietly. “I should think you of all people deserve to know.”

Minerva regards him for a long moment.

“You supported his ideas, once?

Albus sighs. 

“I had many ideas about the world when I was 17 that utterly appalls me today. I was arrogant and resentful; qualities Gellert has always shared and that lend themselves well to a worldview where some are worth less than others. I believed us intellectual equals, so we discussed how to better this world at length and I was brought in by the more tastefully worded of his ideas.”

“And the less tastefully worded ones?” she asks, and here it is; that guarded tone he can’t blame her for. 

“Some he didn’t put to me, others I willfully ignored or convinced myself would not in truth be so terrible as they surely would have been had Gellert succeeded. Self-deception is a powerful thing and it was a skill I was quite adept at during that period of my life.”

Minerva looks deep in thought as he talks and starts nodding when he finishes, then takes a sip of her cup. Albus follows suit, but while Minerva is looking far off, his eyes stay on her. 

“I think I understand,” she finally says and meets his eyes.

Then she does something as unprecedented as this conversation has been; she puts her hand over his and squeezes, once, before drawing it back again. 

“Now, about the lesson plans…”

  
  
  
  


The year is 1977 and Sirius Black is sitting in Albus’ office. Albus had not been here when he arrived, but it seems whatever teacher had brought him - probably Minerva - had chosen to leave him to it. Minerva has something of a fondness for him. Not that you’d know that; Albus doubts Sirius would believe it if he told him. Minerva is far too professional and fair to let such a thing show, especially with a troublemaker like Sirius. The young Black heir has been here often throughout his years at Hogwarts, both along with his partners in crime and, as today, on his own. 

Sirius is sitting with his feet up under him on his chair and his arms around himself. His handsome dark hair obscures his face and any trace of his usual good humor seems quite far away. Albus thinks he sees him fiddling with something as he walks in, but he immediately stops when he spots Albus. 

“Good afternoon, Mr. Black,” he says as he walks past him to his own seat. 

“Afternoon,” Sirius mumbles into the crook of his elbow. 

“Did Professor McGonagall bring you?”

Sirius nods. 

“Why?”

First, Sirius does nothing. Then when he lifts his head, Albus can tell he has been crying. Merlin, what has Walburga done now? The poor boy looks almost as shattered as after he’d nearly gotten poor Severus Snape killed - and more than after what Albus feels pretty sure must have been a severe beating by one of his parents last year. Sirius had refused to do anything but stick to his story that it had been a spell gone wrong, of course, but as a teacher, Albus has learned what to look for, and Sirius case was not a hard one to crack. It was not unheard of for pureblood parents, who normally prided themselves on staying far away from base muggle violence, to unleash that type of behavior on children they thought were being too muggle-friendly. Albus had tried talking to Sirius then but had gotten nowhere - there was little enough he could do, anyway. Even had the Blacks not been a powerful family, it is not an easy thing to move a child. At least he’s just turned 16; in a year’s time, he’ll legally be an adult. 

“She said I should talk to you…” Sirius says, but he refuses to meet Albus’ eyes as he talks and he has not lifted his head enough for his eyes to be visible. 

“Would you like a Sherbert lemon, Mr. Black?” Albus asks. “Or some tea, perhaps?”

Sirius just shakes his head, which is mostly evident by his hair flying back and forth over his arms. 

There is another long pause before Sirius speaks: 

“I think I’m gay.”

“Ah,” Albus says, suddenly understanding why Minerva would have left this to him.

He struggles for a moment with what to say to the boy. This was not what he thought this would be and Albus is not accustomed with introducing others to this world, as it were. 

Sirius seems to think his pause rather more damning and jumps up from where he’s sitting with anger and tears.

“Forget it!” he yells and turns towards the door. 

“Do you know why Professor McGonagall send you to me with this, Sirius?” Albus asks. 

Sirius stops, but doesn’t turn around. 

“Because she didn’t want to deal with it,” he says tonelessly. 

“No, it’s not that,” Albus says calmly. “It’s because  _ I  _ am a homosexual.” 

Now Sirius turns around, looking rather confused.

“You?” He just asks, dumbstruck. 

“We come in all ages, you know,” Albus responds and can’t help but smiles as he does. “Why don’t you sit down again, Mr. Black?” 

Sirius does, still looking a bit like someone spilled a bucket of water over his head out of nowhere. 

“Now, I understand that you believe yourself to be the same as me and I can tell this upsets you,” Albus says. “Would you like to tell me why?”

“You know what family I’m from, Professor,” Sirius says darkly. “I’m the heir an’ all.”

While wizarding society is at least somewhat less homophobic than muggle society, the old families have their principles: their line must continue. Just as it is a crime against the family to “poison” their bloodline with muggle blood, so it is one to not further the bloodline at all. Albus understands it; though it is not an experience he shares, his family being too insignificant for those concerns, he has known many in the same position. 

“You’re not the first I’ve known with that worry,” Albus says. “Still, you have been defying your parents since you got here. With every year you’ve been friends with Mr. Lupin, you have defied them. I have heard you’re becoming friends with Miss Evans, too.”

Sirius had seemed to flinch a bit at the mention of Remus…  _ interesting. _

“What’s your point?” Sirius asks moodily. 

“You don’t care what they think in these instances, but your preference gives you pause because of them. Why is that?” 

“I don’t know...” Sirius confesses. “I just keep imagining what they would tell me if they found out, and…” 

“Yes?”

“Well… I wonder if they wouldn’t be right about some of it,” Sirius says. “The muggle doctors think it’s an illness of the mind.” 

“And yet a muggle in the 1860s once wrote that we bloom like the roses and are as healthy as the fish in the sea, while Wilde called it a more noble love than any other,” Albus tells him. “I promise you there’s nothing wrong with you, Sirius. Nothing whatsoever.”

“But Dumbledore…” Sirius says quietly, his voice having taken on an almost desperate tone. “You’re alone, aren’t you? They say people like us can’t be happy. Are you happy?”

“I’m not you, Sirius,” Albus says. “And your life will not be my life.”

Sirius is crying now.

“So that’s a no, then.”

“I am content, if that’s what you mean,” Albus says. “And I have not always been alone. I’ve simply become too accustomed to my own eccentricities to be with another in my old age. That’s not due to my preference.” 

Sirius is still crying a little bit. He doesn’t look convinced. Albus isn’t sure he is, either, but that’s hardly the point. His misfortunes are not Sirius’ and they are due to Gellert and his own arrogance, nothing else. He doesn’t want to tell Sirius any of that, but he’s running out of ideas. Then an abhorrent one strikes him. It will be a lie, if he does this. It’ll have to be. If he told him the truth, Sirius’ thoughts would go exactly where Albus had for the better part of this century’s first decade. He’ll find out the truth some day, Albus doesn’t doubt it. Right now, though... 

“I have something to show you,” Albus says and gets up. “Wait a moment.”

Albus goes to one of the many cupboards in his office and opens the top drawer. He looks down at the small box he’s been storing it in for the last decade and draws a deep breath. Then he lifts the box, flickers the worst of the dust of it and goes over to Sirius where he opens it to show him the contents. 

“Do you know what this is?” 

Sirius stares for a long moment, forehead furrowed. Then he shakes his head.

“Have you heard of areths?”

When Sirius drawns in a sharp breath and looks up at Albus in wonder, it’s answer enough. 

“I made this with a man,” Albus tells him. He hesitates before committing to the lie - well, this part is, unfortunately, rather true: “A man I loved.”

Sirius stares and stares. It’s plain to see that he doesn’t believe his own eyes, so Albus lightly grabs hold of the chain and pulls the areth up of the box. 

“Did he die?” Sirius asks as he keeps staring at the areth. “Is that why it looks like that?”

Albus closes his eyes, in something frighteningly close to the grief Sirius believes it to be. 

“Yes,” he lies. “He died during Grindelwald's Uprising.” 

  
  
  
  


The year is 1997 and he knows he'll have to die soon. Not today, not this week, but soon enough. Even had death not been spreading from his hand like a disease, the pieces are all in place. Now he must sacrifice his queen if he wishes to move forward. 

_ For the greater good _ , he thinks bitterly. 

But no. No, he has done what he can. Gellert’s greater good was no good at all, but Albus saw only one path to save them from his spiritual successor and he took it. Who would, if not he? This does not excuse him. He does not believe it does. But Albus has been tainted since the moment his lips touched Gellert’s and the blood of pieces sacrificed to win this game may cling to him forever, but at least he has spared those who were not already damned from making these decisions. They have been his alone, and thus so is the fault. He has done what he can. 

Albus has had a will since his duel with Gellert, but has only updated it every decade or so. Now he makes updates. He gives Harry the clues he cannot give him now and does his best to ensure he'll have the support he needs on the journey ahead. 

When he’s done, he goes to the areth. He doesn’t keep it in his office anymore. Not since the first war started. It had been a reminder of what not to become, but the wars had provided reminder enough. It has been in the back of a drawer in his private quarters since, gathering dust. He looks at it again, this little broken thing that once controlled so much of his life. Would he be the same, had Gellert not asked him to do this? He could have moved against Gellert much, much earlier, had it not existed. It is a part of his story. 

But Albus doesn't want it to be. 

A part of him thinks he should leave it here to be found once he's gone, to pass into the pages of not just his story, but of history. But another part rebels at the thought. Has he not given enough? Can he not be allowed this one selfishness? 

Albus takes the areth and with it a decision. He leaves his office, the building and then the grounds. And then he apparates. When he reaches Godric’s Hollow, he walks down the familiar path towards the lake outside the village where he and Gellert had swam a few times during that summer of 1899. Then he throws the amulet as far into the lake as he can. 

“To forget time, to forgive life, to be at peace,” he says to himself as he stares at where it hit the water.

**Author's Note:**

> The muggle quote Dumbledore references is this in its entirety: 
> 
> “Uranism and hermaphroditism aren’t about disease symptoms at all. Just as you do, Uranians and hermaphrodites bloom like the roses and are as healthy as the fish in the sea.”
> 
> It’s from a letter Karl Heinrich Ulrichs wrote to his family members after he’d come out to them in a previous letter. German source [ here. ](http://gutenberg.spiegel.de/buch/-9060/4)
> 
> The Wilde quote he references is:
> 
> “To have altered my life would have been to have admitted that Uranian love is ignoble. I hold it to be noble - more noble than other forms.”
> 
> This is also from a letter, from one of the ones Wilde wrote while in prison. 
> 
> The end quote is also a Wilde one, from his The Canterville Ghost and is in full: 
> 
> “Death must be so beautiful. To lie in the soft brown earth, with the grasses waving above one's head, and listen to silence. To have no yesterday, and no tomorrow. To forget time, to forgive life, to be at peace.”


End file.
